The Start of New Beginnings.....hopefully!

I feel it is about time that I swept out the cobwebs and brushed away the dust from the long forgotten corners of this blog which have accumulated in the presence of such unforgivable inactivity. Has it really been .....5 months?!?! FIVE MONTHS!!!! since I last posted? I'm afraid to say it has. I feel I should apologise although I realise I'm not quite sure who to. Is there anyone out there reading this? More then anything I feel like a neglectful parent. Much work is needed now to make up for lost time.
The reason this blog has been left like an orphaned child on a doorstep for, I'll have to say it again, 5 months! is that the three month internship at Rooks Books which I last wrote about three weeks into it's commencement, has lead to a part-time job! It's great news but does mean my illustration has been put on the back-burner for the last few months while I got into the routine of becoming a Commuter for four days a week. However, I have a few personal projects bubbling on the horizon (hhherrm, may have mixed me metaphors up there but aah well) and so hopefully this post can signal the re-launch of all things blackbird and lemoncurd-y! And in the mean time don't forget that if you're in the mood for an illustrative treat, then there's always the collective which I post to once a month with fellow illustrators Diana Mazuru and Rachel Rawlings. August's offering was all about Jane Eyre and this September we're illustrating Blackberry Wine.
So, I thought I would kick off the start of new beginnings with a few pages from my sketchbook. For the Jane Eyre challenge I was really inspired by the brooding, Gothic atmosphere of the 1943 film adaptation and so I decided to keep my image black and white and use Parker ink. I've seen this medium be used a lot and to great effect, but I've not really used it before myself so it was a bit of an experiment. These pages show the process and if you'd like to see the finished result, click on the collective link above.